Immune System: Your Body’s Secret Weapon

Immune system is central to health and well-being of an individual. It controls and influences all aspects of your health. The healthier is your immune system, the better your body can cope with the foreign antigens it encounters. Immune system is the defense force of your body, it fights against the foreign particles or pathogens that try to enter into your body just like the soldiers that stay on the borders of our country and try their best to protect the invaders that try to enter in our country and disturb its peace.

A strong immune system is developed over years, no one is born with it. Thus, it has been observed that adults and teens tend to have higher immunity as compared to children as they have been exposed to more pathogens and developed immunity for the same during that period of time.

How does your immune system work?

Our immune system follows the three R’s formula i.e. Firstly it recognizes the foreign body that tries to enter your body, then it responds against these foreign particles by attacking them and then it remembers these foreign antigens to build immunity for any future attacks by the same antigen.

Let’s find out about few of the food stuffs which helps in boosting your immunity:

Mother’s milk is the best source of nutrition for infants during the first six months of life, it also contains numerous immune factors to protect the baby from infections.

Citrus fruits like orange, lemon, melons, lime are rich in antioxidants and Vitamin c which helps in building immunity of your body by detoxifying the chemicals that are harmful for body.

Orange, red and yellow colored fruits and vegetables like bell peppers, carrots, pumpkin, and papaya are rich in Vitamin A which helps in formation of healthy mucus which is ideal for the first line of defense against the foreign particles.

Green vegetables like spinach, kale, mustard leaves, bathua, broccoli, and kiwi are rich in iron which is essential for good immunity.

Garlic has immune boosting properties due to high concentration of sulfur-containing compounds such as allicin in it.

Ginger helps in decreasing the inflammation and treating nausea and chronic pains.

Nuts and seeds like almonds, walnuts and sunflower seeds are high in phosphorus, magnesium, vitamin B-6, vitamin E which maintains your immunity.

Dark green leafy vegetables, avocados are high in vitamin E which is important for regulating and maintaining the functioning of immune system.

Turmeric is known to have high anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-bacterial properties which helps in boosting and maintaining your body’s immunity.

Over to you:

Three easy steps to build a lasting immunity- The very first food which is the mother’s milk is very nutritious for a baby and it has few nutrients which provide lifelong immunity to the infant thus it is very essential to breast feed a child for a good immunity throughout the life. Secondly, timely vaccination is very important for immunity against deadly diseases. And last but not least, consuming nutritious food as mentioned above can help to maintain the immunity.